Wherein I Call Yeats "Awesome"

Today, I will follow Amy's example and post a poem in honor of April's being poetry month.  Long ago, when I was young and in college, I went through a phase of posting poems on the walls of my bedroom.  Please remember, young' uns, that this endeavor actually required some effort on my part: there were no poems on the Internet to copy and paste and print out.  There was no sharing of inspirational quotes on Pinterest or Tumblr.  I wrote these out myself from a book that I had gotten from a library.  I stopped short of using calligraphy, but still...

Effort.

Anywhoo, I no longer recognize that young lady who - in addition to being able to thrive on 6 hours sleep and bike up and down the steep hills of Ithaca, NY -  posted poems on her bedroom wall.  I don't remember why she did that.  I don't even recall what criteria she used in their selection.  But one of those poems, by Yeats, has always stuck with me; and here I share it with you (just imagine Garrison Keillor reading it aloud - it sounds better that way):

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,	5
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;	10
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

A bee-loud glade...where peace comes dropping slow...and midnight's all a-glimmer...even to a poetry idiot like me, those phrases sound awesome.

Awesome -- I bet Yeats would have come up with a better descriptor than that.


[And that painting up there, by Kate McPhee, was inspired by the poem.  I like it.]